Nothing But Competition

Sunday, February 7, 2016 – Nothing But Competition

Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim. ~ Bertrand Russell

Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best; it removes all that is base. All men are afraid in battle. The coward is the one who lets his fear overcome his sense of duty. Duty is the essence of manhood. ~ George S. Patton

There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there. ~ Indira Gandhi

The problem with competition is that it takes away the requirement to set your own path, to invent your own method, to find a new way. ~ Seth Godin

Focus on competition has always been a formula for mediocrity. ~ Daniel Burrus

Your competition is not other people but the time you kill, the ill will you create, the knowledge you neglect to learn, the connections you fail to build, the health you sacrifice along the path, your inability to generate ideas, the people around you who don’t support and love your efforts, and whatever god you curse for your bad luck. ~ James Altucher

Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

I find capitalism repugnant. It is filthy, it is gross, it is alienating… because it causes war, hypocrisy and competition. ~ Fidel Castro

The unrestricted competition so commonly advocated does not leave us the survival of the fittest. The unscrupulous succeed best in accumulating wealth. ~ Rutherford B. Hayes

The easy way to make money is to get special political privilege. From the beginning of time, business has cozied up to government and gotten restrictions on competition and subsidies and stuff. ~ Charles Koch

Competition is a sin. ~ John D. Rockefeller

And while the law of competition may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department. ~ Andrew Carnegie

The more the division of labor and the application of machinery extend, the more does competition extend among the workers, the more do their wages shrink together. ~ Karl Marx

Number one, cash is king… number two, communicate… number three, buy or bury the competition. ~ Jack Welch

There are two powers in the world; one is the sword and the other is the pen. There is a great competition and rivalry between the two. There is a third power stronger than both, that of the women. ~ Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Most women prefer circles of sharing to pyramids and hierarchies. They prefer conversation to construction. They will usually choose nurturance and empathy over competition and climbing. They will normally choose connection over simple performance games. ~ Richard Rohr

All, all is theft, all is unceasing and rigorous competition in nature; the desire to make off with the substance of others is the foremost – the most legitimate – passion nature has bred into us and, without doubt, the most agreeable one. ~ Marquis de Sade

An artist is somebody who enters into competition with God. ~ Patti Smith

Real competition can drive up testosterone, which boosts libido. ~ Helen Fisher

There’s a misconception that survival of the fittest means survival of the most aggressive. The adjective ‘Darwinian’ used to refer to ruthless competition; you used to read that in business journals. But that’s not what Darwinian means to a biologist; it’s whatever leads to reproductive success. ~ Steven Pinker

The praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the living. ~ Thomas Hobbes

Since I became a novelist I have discovered that I am biased. Either I think a new novel is worse than mine and I don’t like it, or I suspect it is better than my novels and I don’t like it. ~ Umberto Eco

Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is not fair. He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people’s mouths. I do not like him, and do not mean to like Waverley if I can help it – but fear I must. ~ Jane Austen

Every sect is a moral check on its neighbor. Competition is as wholesome in religion as in commerce. ~ Walter Savage Landor

I don’t have a sense of entitlement or that I deserve this. You’d be surprised at the lack of competition between nominees – I think a lot of it’s imposed from the outside. Can I have my champagne now? ~ Cate Blanchett

All you now do is pursue your private objectives within society. Instead of us being a community, everybody is asked to seek their own personal ends. It’s called competition. And competition is antagonism. ~ Edward Bond

Competition is the spice of sports; but if you make spice the whole meal you’ll be sick. ~ George Leonard

In baseball, you can hit 40 home runs on a single-A-league team and never get paid a thing. But in a hedge fund, you get paid on your batting average. So you go to the worst league you can find, where there’s the least competition. ~ Julian Robertson

What does it mean to be the best? It means you have to be better than the number two guy. But what gratification is there in that? He’s a loser – that’s why he’s number two. ~ Jarod Kintz, This Book is Not for Sale

Never compete with someone who has nothing to lose. ~ Baltasar Gracián

Instead of playing to win, I was playing not to lose. It reminds me of the story I once heard about two friends being chased by a bear, when one turned to the other and said, “I just realized that I don’t need to outrun the bear; I only need to outrun you.” ~ Sean Covey

Moderate giftedness has been made worthless by the printing press and radio and television and satellites and all that. A moderately gifted person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years ago has to give up, has to go into some other line of work, since modern communications put him or her into daily competition with nothing but the world’s champions. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

There has been among us, particularly in America, an adolescent competitiveness – a feeling that life is a race in which the victory of one must mean the defeat of the other. No one can measure how much personal unhappiness and inner cowardice have come from this immaturity of our social outlook, this childlike comparison, this absurd rivalry in every area of life. As our democracy becomes more mature, men have a chance of growing up and of realizing that every person is needed and has some contribution to make. ~ Joshua Loth Liebman

The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. ~ Willie Nelson